These successive disappointments fell at a time when the two Mathers were defeated (through Dudley’s contrivances, as was alleged) in the contest for the presidency of Harvard College. This outcome made for Dudley two bitter and unscrupulous enemies, and any abuse they might shower upon him gained a ready hearing in a belief, prevalent even with fair people, that Dudley was using his own position for personal gain in illicit trade with Acadia. There have been reprinted in the second volume of the Sewall Papers three testy tracts which grew out of this conjunction of affairs. In them Dudley is charged with the responsibility of these military miscarriages, and events are given a turn which the careful historian finds it necessary to scrutinize closely.[920]
Palfrey (iv. 273) pictures the universal chagrin and details the efforts to shift the blame for the failure of this expedition. Charlevoix gives a pretty full account, but his editor claims that the English chroniclers resort to vagueness in their stories. In some copies of Diéreville’s Relation du voyage du Port Royal de l’Acadie (Amsterdam, 1710) there is an appendix on the 1707 expedition, taken from the Gazette of Feb. 25, 1708.[921]
Events were tending towards a more strenuous effort at the reduction of Acadia. Jeremiah Dummer, in London, had in 1709 presented a memorial to the ministry arguing that the banks of the St. Lawrence belonged of right to New England.[922] It is printed in The Importance and Advantage of Cape Breton, London, 1746.[923] In April, 1709, the home government despatched orders to the colonies[924] for an extended movement on Montreal by way of Lake Champlain, and another on Quebec by water,—the latter part of the plan falling to the lot of Massachusetts and Rhode Island, who were promised the coöperation of a royal fleet and a force of veterans.[925] Colonel Vetch, who was a prime mover in the proceeding, brought the messages of the royal pleasure, and was made the adjutant-general of the commander, Francis Nicholson; but the promised fleet did not come, and the few king’s ships which were in Boston were held aloof by their commanders, and a project to turn the troops, already massed in Boston, against Port Royal, since there was no chance of success against Quebec unaided, was abandoned for want of the convoy these royal ships might have afforded.[926] Nicholson, the companion of Vetch, returned to England,[927] and the next year (1710) came back with a small fleet, which, with an expeditionary force of New Englanders, captured Port Royal,[928] and Vetch was left governor of the country.[929]
ANNAPOLIS ROYAL.
One of Des Barres’ coast views (in Harvard College library).
The key of the fort at Annapolis, taken at this time, is in the cabinet of the Mass. Hist. Society. (Cf. Catal. Cab. M. H. Soc., p. 112; Proceedings, i. 101.)
Col. William Dudley under date of Nov. 15, 1710, sent to the Board of Trade a communication covering the journal of Col. Nicholson during the siege, with correspondence appertaining, and these papers from the Record Office, London, are printed in the Nova Scotia Hist. Soc. Collections, i. p. 59, as (p. 64) is also a journal from the Boston News-Letter of Nov. 6, 1710. Sabin (ix. no. 36,703) notes a very rare tract: Journal of an Expedition performed by the forces of our Soveraign Lady Anne, Queen, etc., under the command of the Honourable Francis Nicholson in the year 1710, for the reduction of Port Royal in Nova Scotia, London, 1711. A journal kept by the Rev. Mr. Buckingham is printed from the original MS., edited by Theodore Dwight, in the Journals of Madam Knight and Rev. Mr. Buckingham (New York, 1825).[930]